News Article

For updates on the Zambia trip, visit the Gonzaga-in-Zambezi blog.

In the spirit of its mission to develop leaders for the common good, Gonzaga University’s Comprehensive Leadership Program, in collaboration with GU’s Center for Community Action and Service Learning, recently embarked on its second annual intercultural servant leadership program in Zambia, Africa. Last week, 13 undergraduate students and two faculty members began their journey to the town of Zambezi, where they will live and work for one month.

Students enrolled in this unique program will participate in three phases of instruction: classroom instruction, field experience, and community and social justice outreach. For the majority of the month, the group will live on the Catholic mission compound in Zambezi, which includes a convent, school and priest’s house. While there, students will participate in educational and service-oriented activities such as outreach activities at the mission school and continued work with Zambian honey farmers to provide a sustainable market for fair trade organic honey. The group will also visit Victoria Falls in Livingstone, Zambia, and take a two-day safari in nearby Botswana.

This year’s Zambia trip is especially exciting as the CLP was awarded a Murdock Charitable Trust grant for a Vision & Call Social Entrepreneurship Internship Program, which will enable the group to document its trip with video and photographs, in addition to funding three interns who will participate in a micro-finance project assisting local beekeepers.

“We are excited and grateful to have the opportunity to return to Zambezi and continue our partnership with the local villagers and the honey project,” said CLP director, Josh Armstrong.

This transformative experience will extend far beyond the group’s return to Gonzaga. To assist with re-immersion into American culture, the students will engage in reflective discussions both online and on the GU campus. Students will also be encouraged to take follow-up courses and engage in activities that will share their experience and help them better comprehend their role in serving as leaders and positive agents of global justice. 

Established in 2002, the CLP is a three-year concentration designed to offer students curricular and co-curricular opportunities to develop their leadership knowledge and skills. The program now serves almost 150 undergraduate students and provides a wide variety of classes and activities, ranging from classroom instruction to outdoor leadership camping trips and the Zambia program.

For updates on the Zambia trip, visit the Gonzaga-in-Zambezi blog. To learn more about the CLP, contact program coordinator Katie Herzog at (509) 323-3579 or via e-mailor visit the CLP Web site.